


apology

by dutchydoescoke



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Drinking & Talking, Episode Tag, Gen, Post-By The Light Of Dawn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-07
Updated: 2017-03-07
Packaged: 2018-09-30 08:08:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10158299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dutchydoescoke/pseuds/dutchydoescoke
Summary: “Maia.”What kind ofidiotdoes he have to be to show his face right now?





	

**Author's Note:**

> idk what this is, i hammered it out in two hours and gave it a cursory once-over before posting.
> 
> major spoilers for 2x10, warnings for brief appearance of self-harm, jace's suicidal tendencies, mentions of emotional abuse, and implications of alcoholism.

“Maia.”

What kind of _idiot_ does he have to be to show his face right now? She’s just lost half her pack and _he’s_ to blame. She can feel the wolf wanting to come out, fights the change that’s itching at her bones, and her claws dig into the counter behind the bar. Her chest still feels hollowed out, aching and empty, and she can feel her lost pack members like a physical _ache_.

“Maia, I’m _sorry_ ,” he says and there’s an apology in his voice, tone almost begging.

She can’t bring herself to look at him. She’ll snap and kill him.

“I remember the rules,” he says. There’s an edge to his voice almost like desperation and she looks up without meaning to. He looks destroyed, in worse shape than the first time he’d walked into the bar, even if the devastation is only mental. There’s a cut on his forehead that’s starting to scab over and she watches him pick at it. “Blood for blood.”

She didn’t expect him to be that guilty, and she suspects that there’s more to that offer than she wants to examine. But this is a conversation they need to have. She’s _angry_ , the kind where it feels like fire under her skin, a bone-deep rage she hasn’t felt since she got _out_ of the hell-hole she’d been in before Luke found her, and she digs her claws further into the counter to keep from lashing out at Jace.

“I’m off in twenty. You’re paying for the bottle of tequila,” she says eventually, when she’s breathed slowly enough and long enough that the heat’s seeped out of her and she’s relaxed a little. “We’re not getting through this conversation sober.”

“I’m sorry,” he repeats, but he slides over enough for the tequila and Maia sets the bottle on the bar in front of him.

Half an hour later, they’re at a table in the back, staring at each other over the tequila bottle in silence, a quarter of the bottle already empty in front of them. Deciding to talk is one thing. Actually doing it is another.

“Valentine told me I was his son,” he says after a few minutes and she blinks in surprise at him choosing to break the silence. “He told me I had demon blood, that he’d experimented on me while my mom was pregnant. That Clary was my sister.” He looks revolted and Maia’s not stupid, she can put the pieces together as to why.

“And that has to do with the Soul-Sword how?” He pours another shot out for her and then himself without a word and she takes the hint, downing the shot. The alcohol’s warm on the way down and she tries to let it relax her.

“My demon blood was supposed to destroy the Soul-Sword. I told you that, right?” She nods and sets the shot glass down before her grip tightens and shatters it. Jace picks at the cut on his forehead again. “I was supposed to go with it. It was a suicide mission.”

That’s probably the least surprising thing she’s heard all week. She wants to still be angry at Jace, wants to rip him to such tiny pieces that there’s no hope of putting him back together. She _is_ still angry, but it’s shifting.

“I _never_ wanted to hurt them, Maia, I’m sorry,” he says, and there’s a guilty look in his eyes that says even if she stops blaming him, he won’t. Living with the guilt is a far crueler punishment than death. “There’s nothing I can do to bring them back, either. I looked.”

This isn’t like with Gretel. The losses this time were worse, the body count higher, and remembering the sight of Alaric’s body lying on the marble floor of the Institute makes her stomach turn, nausea clawing its way up her throat.

This time, Jace did kill them.

He’s not making excuses, not trying to shift the blame. Just trying to explain. She can see the guilt that hangs over his head like a guillotine waiting to fall. The ache in her eases the slightest bit at that, at the knowledge that Jace is going to carry this. Maybe it’s petty and vindictive, but she’s a little glad for it.

She watches him feel out a scab on his hand and start picking at it like the one on his forehead and sighs.

“I’m not going to kill you,” she says. Something flickers in Jace’s eyes, an expression flitting over his face momentarily, and it looks almost like disappointment, like the guillotine isn’t as proverbial as she thought for him. “You were manipulated. It happens. I can’t forgive,” she adds and he nods like he expected nothing else. “I can’t forgive, but I understand.”

There’s silence again after that, and Maia feels some of the sting taken out of the pack’s loss, lets it fuel her anger at Valentine instead. She pours out the shots this time, carefully poured out so as to not spill. The world’s starting to go a little fuzzy around her.

“I didn’t used to drink.” Jace says it quietly, eyes on the shot in front of him. She tips her head back and downs hers before she answers him.

“When did you start?”

“After I got back. After what happened with you and me. After the City of Bones. After my mo—after Jocelyn died.” The correction _hurts_ , she can see it. “Just seemed easier than talking about it.”

She can’t argue that logic. She’s spent too many nights off drinking her way through a bottle of whiskey or tequila until she passes out, the warmth of the alcohol filling the spaces left empty from loss.

“If Valentine ever gets loose, I’m killing him,” she says instead of replying outright. When Jace tears his eyes from the tequila bottle to look at her, Maia shrugs. “I figure I’ve got dibs. Luke probably has dibs, really, but I want to.”

“I’ll hold him down for you.”


End file.
